Tag: inspiration

1. Write about someone you admire from afar – a public figure or celebrity.

Maurice Kain Carter from Maryland, who you may know as HotDamniRock on YouTube, is one of the first YouTube stars to break the internet in 2009 with a slew of hilarious, opinionated videos. His videos ranged from dissecting the difference between a man and woman, to one of my favorites – Brotherly Love, in which he takes Mario & Luigi’s brotherhood to an unprecedented place.

In December 2016, Carter posted a video titled 365 Days Later, revealing why he was gone for a year and change: a car accident, the death of two cousins, the almost death of his dog, extreme stomach pain, extreme eczema….

He went on to explain that he ended up leaving the hospital and his best friend, Ike, helped take care of him. There was a pause.

“Ike died two weeks ago,” Carter said slowly, unable to comprehend the words coming out of his mouth.

My heart literally sank and I started tearing up as he described not knowing how to feel, asking Ike: “How dare you leave me?”

I never watched a video that made me feel so many things – his regret, pain, loss, his inability to wrap his head around the events occuring around him. He describes it as continuously falling into a darker, more silent abyss and “not hitting a bottom.” The video ended with him not being sure when he will return to YouTube.

Over the course of 2017, he posted seven videos, each exposing his growth and realizations, and I never wanted to reach out and hug a stranger as much as I wanted to hug him. As individuals, every daily run-in helps shape our character and sometimes we forget this; I forget this. Watching Carter unapologetically tell his story, share and own his growth as a human, all while still finding the humor in things, inspires me; with will power, we can continue pushing. His journey will forever be etched into my memory because 1) we forget our commonalities as humans – the range of emotions we feel and why we feel them – he is a great reminder of that; and 2) his openness will reach out and touch many in this sea of 7.6B; I’m excited to follow him into 2018. ❤